About Mailing Credit Cards

In the United States, credit cards are generally mailed to your home via USPS using standard mail, although some premium cards are sent by FedEx, UPS, or similar services. For people traveling in China or those who have already been living in China for a long time, how do you receive new credit cards and renewed cards? Here we’ll introduce how to have a U.S. credit card sent to China.

Bank-Initiated Mailing

In fact, U.S. credit card issuers can mail credit cards to international addresses by international mail, and that of course includes China. However, in most cases, a new card will first be sent to the U.S. address you entered when you applied (applications using an international address may not go through). You can contact customer service by phone, secure message, and similar methods, and ask them to mail the card to your address in China.

The ones confirmed to be able to mail internationally so far are Chase and AMEX, and they are generally able to mail for free. You can also try other banks to see whether it works, and feel free to share DPs about other banks.

Example

This example comes from a 2021 submission by Sister He’s little 招猫 on US Card Strategy,

Recently I saw that the IHG Premier credit card had a historic best offer, and I hadn’t opened a card in a long time. I had been at 0/24 for a while, so I decisively jumped on it. I also successfully had customer service mail it back to China for me. Here I’ll briefly share the whole process.

Every Chase application was pending, and this time was no exception. At that point you can call recon right away and have an analyst review your file immediately. If you’re not in a hurry and feel there’s nothing wrong with your application, you can also just leave it alone and it may be approved after a few days. I waited about a week, and the card then showed up in online banking. About another week later, the U.S. address received the card. Meeting this card’s $3,000 spending requirement remotely from China isn’t difficult at all (later we’ll introduce some methods for completing welcome-offer spending remotely). But in the end, I decided to go directly to Chase and ask for a replacement card to be forwarded to China.

Originally I planned to ask a friend for help, but almost everyone in the U.S. was working from home at the time, and during the COVID period I didn’t feel comfortable asking someone to make a special trip. Also, if the card had already been activated, it would have been troublesome if it got lost in transit.

Note: Chase cannot directly mail a card to China when you first apply. The card has to be replaced after it has been sent out, and then the replacement card is forwarded to China. If the card number is not changed, the card you receive in the U.S. and the one you receive in China will be the same, and you could even swipe both at the same time..

With a try-it-and-see attitude, I called the number on the back of the card and asked customer service, explaining that I had a special situation and asking whether they could mail it directly to China. The representative said it could be mailed, but the card would need to be replaced and resent. I didn’t immediately request a replacement over the phone, because I was remembering the painful experience of spelling letters over the phone before, so I asked whether this could be done through SM instead. The representative said no problem. So I immediately wrote a message in my Chase online banking account, roughly like this:

I just applied this IHG premier credit card, and the card has been sent to my US address; however due to the current pandemic, I don’t think I would be able to return to the US anytime soon. I am currently in China and I have several IHG stays coming next month; I’d like to use this card to pay for the stays and meet minimum spending requirement. Hotels usually need to use the physical card and does not support mobile wallet like apple pay here in China.

Could you please send me a replacement card to my address in China so that I could use this card.


The next day, Chase replied in Messages saying it had been mailed out. They were very efficient. For security, the card number was changed by customer service and treated as a replacement card. The reply was as follows:
Thank you for contacting us. We understand your concern about your card delivery for your IHG® Premier Card and will be more than happy to help you 美卡攻略, since you do not have the card ending in 0001 in your possession, we closed it to prevent fraudulent activity, and issued a new card with a new account number ending in 0002. We mailed your new card via International Rush Delivery to the alternate address you provided. You should receive it in two to seven business days depending on the destination country.

Chase customer service was really impressive and used international rush delivery directly (2-7 days for delivery). I feel like that probably costs more than the IHG annual fee. Chase is still very generous in many ways, and I hope everyone cherishes that and plays lightly. UPS international express is very expensive, but according to the tracking information, it took less than 5 days to arrive in China.

This shipment was very fast. On November 2, it arrived at the forwarding company [Hangzhou Fanyuan International Logistics Co., Ltd.], which is UPS’s local agent in China. The company was so small that they didn’t even deliver it directly after calling me; they asked me to pick it up myself.

Let me show the card. Chase really came through, so a thumbs-up to Chase! This is the outer packaging:

The card

The whole process, from shipment to receiving the card, took only 5 days. Very impressive. In fact, it’s not just Chase; for other U.S. credit cards, you can also ask for a replacement card after it’s been sent out, and then have customer service help forward it to China. AMEX and Chase are relatively easy, and you can usually solve it through Chat or Secure Message.

Proactively Change the China Address

Another once-and-for-all method is to change the credit card’s Mailing Address to an overseas address, such as directly changing it to a China address. American Express, Bank of America, Barclaycard, Citi, Chase, and Discover all support changing a credit card’s mailing or billing address to China, but changing it directly online may produce some strange errors, so you can call and make the change. After the change is completed, all mail will default to the mailing address. However, please note that sometimes renewed credit cards will still be mailed first to the U.S. address.

Actually, I don’t really recommend changing the address to China. First, after the change, when you shop online, this card may fail when you enter the billing address, or the site may not support overseas addresses at all. Second, according to DPs online, some credit card companies will directly close all of your cards because the card’s address has been overseas for a long time; Citi, for example, does this. Third, in reality, only the credit card and renewed cards need to be mailed to China. Other statements and similar mail can be changed to paperless, and you can just view the eStatement online, so there’s no need to mail them.

So I suggest contacting customer service proactively each time you need a renewal, explain that you may be staying in China, and request that it be mailed to your domestic address. If you really need to pay a little postage, that’s acceptable too, since one renewal can keep the card valid for about 5 years.

Automatic Forwarding Services

In the U.S., there are automatic package forwarding services where you can register an account and then be assigned a forwarding address. Any packages mailed to that address can be automatically forwarded to the new address you provide. In the past, many people used this service for overseas shopping, forwarding items bought online in the U.S. to China. In fact, this service can also be used to forward letters (mail forward). So you can use this method to automatically forward U.S. credit cards to China.

Here, we’ll use a relatively large forwarding service provider, AnytimeMailBox, to explain. Setting up a forwarding service is very simple. All you need to do is

  • Select an address: Choose a location you like from the list of addresses provided by the forwarding service. Some addresses are in tax-free states, so purchases there can be tax-free.
  • Choose a plan: Different plans offer different services. Some include unlimited package forwarding for a monthly fee, some include a fixed number of shipments, and some can scan your mail, and so on.
  • Manage your mailbox: After you set up the mailbox, you can manage it online. View scanned mail, destroy mail you don’t need, forward the packages you need, and so on.

After setup, all you need to do is enter the address provided by the forwarding service as the shipping address when you buy something. Then, once the package arrives, just choose how you want it handled.

However, unlike ordinary packages, forwarding credit cards is subject to many more restrictions. To successfully forward a credit card, you need to meet the following three conditions:

  1. The credit card company allows shipment to that address
  2. USPS allows forwarding to that address (USPS 1583)
  3. The forwarding service allows credit cards to be received and forwarded

Addresses that are allowed for shipment

First, let’s look at the first point. In the U.S., when you apply for a credit card, you need to provide a fixed physical address (it cannot be a PO Box), but there are generally no special requirements for the credit card’s mailing address. However, based on user tests and summaries, many banks do not allow credit cards to be mailed to a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA). And the address of a forwarding service is very likely already classified as CMRA, so we need to choose a non-CMRA address from all the addresses offered by the forwarding service. So how do you check? USPS actually provides this feature:

For example, let’s pick a random New York address on AnytimeMailBox: 1820 Avenue M Brooklyn, NY 11230 ($6.99 per month). You can see that this address is marked as CMRA, with the result showing Y, so the bank will very likely not mail a credit card there.

Then let’s try another address, 442 Lorimer Street Brooklyn, NY 11206 ($14.99 per month). You can see that it is not classified as a CMRA address, with the result showing N.

So if you plan to forward a credit card, make sure you check the address first. Also, some banks, such as AMEX, are said to have even stricter address requirements and require a Residential Address. We can use RDI (Residential Address Indicator) to verify this.

For example, if we check the $14.99-per-month address above, we can see that the RDI is also Residential, which means this address is still quite good.

USPS 1583 form

For ordinary packages, if you use commercial shipping services such as DHL, FedEx, or UPS, there is no problem sending them to a forwarding service. But ordinary mail is sent through USPS, especially since credit cards are very likely to be sent by standard mail, so you need to authorize USPS before it can be mailed properly to the forwarding address. Without authorization, it is theoretically illegal for the forwarding service to accept it.

To authorize it, you need to fill out USPS Form 1583 and complete identity verification.

If you have spent a long time in the U.S. and have proof such as your SSN, driver’s license, statements, and so on, you can choose online verification and notarization. Usually, they will pull your public record information, ask a few identity-related questions, and then you can proceed with video notarization.

If you are not in the U.S., or if you do not have SSN or other related identity documents, you can only have the form notarized yourself and upload the information. You can use online third-party notarization services, such as the two below. I won’t go into detail here.

After completing this form, the forwarding service can accept USPS-forwarded standard mail.

The forwarding service allows credit cards

The last step is to check whether the forwarding service allows credit cards, because of the special nature of credit cards, some forwarding services clearly prohibit mailing or forwarding credit cards in their terms. So make sure you check carefully before choosing a forwarding service. For example, one forwarding service below does not allow cash, credit cards, checks, lottery tickets, and other items. If such items are sent, they may be returned or destroyed.

My recommendation

As you can see, mailing a credit card through a forwarding service is still quite troublesome, and any mistake at any step could mean you never receive the card. If you must use this method, I would first contact the bank and ask them to mail the card through a commercial service (FedEx, UPS, DHL). That can bypass USPS restrictions and greatly improve the success rate of forwarding, although some banks may charge an expedited-processing fee. If you can only use USPS, it is best to take care of notarization and similar steps while you are still in the U.S. Once that’s done, it can be a one-and-done solution.

Forwarding through a friend

There’s not much to say about forwarding through a friend. First, you need a good friend who has lived in the U.S. for a long time and ideally doesn’t move around too often. All you need to do is change the credit card’s billing and mailing address to their home. To be safe, it’s best to also change your old address to your friend’s home with USPS.

In addition, I suggest changing all credit card statements to paperless, blocking promotional emails, and unsubscribing from all useless magazines. Don’t add extra burden to your friend. Of course, I also recommend giving some reimbursement benefits to your friend, since helping you receive mail is already a hassle.

After your friend receives the credit card, they can mail it to you together with other items through a Chinese parcel forwarding service, which is pretty good.

Conclusion

Mailing a credit card to China is still quite troublesome, so everyone should first contact the bank and see whether they can mail it to an overseas address. Then see whether a U.S. friend can help receive the mail. Only after that should you consider using a forwarding service.

If you have any other methods, or any successful experiences, feel free to share them in the comments~